CVEMF wrote:

  @mamarider  : Don't be so hard with the dev, they work are difficult, any game build some bugs and they whant to satisfy everybody, I only reprove the contexte to add too lot of things that makes the game unstable and difficult to balanced seems it's a hard coding to build soms mods and compatibility especially in 4X ... But i'ts a small campany and of course they need to make some profit with dlc and whatever but they whant also to improve the game with new mechanic (maybe too much) . I find good that we can say responsible what we thinking in this forum, it's a luck for us. Of course soms implement idea are good or less good but our opinion, they take them into account, whe are not forced to buy the dlc or we can unchecked. All we can do is to wait a fix, mod or makes mods. If they make a new funtastic game, it's because they consider this game is finish and they will return of this when they shall have time for this, we can not blame that.

I am not hard, I just don't understand their recent policy. Amplitude've been building up reputation and trust from the community for a long time now, they need to be open about things like this, dead silence in regard to players' problems and fair complaints is only a way to create uncertainty and mistrust. Players want updates, they want to stay in touch, know what to expect. I'd better know for good that the game is abandoned rather than know nothing and continue to report bugs wondering whether they even look at those once.

Put quite simply I have been supporting this game EA. I have bought every DLC and I've got my money's worth however the last expansion was terrible, it is the only campaign I just could not get myself to finish and I just occasionally pop on here to see if you've done the right thing by at least getting rid of that ridiculous fleet which makes the game so easy, it's comic. I'm saddened that a game that started so badly, improved, was given an admirable amount of free content should be left like this. The universe is the best part of the game. The combat is and has always been pretty awful and the tech tree was never as simple and logical as the first one. But it had many good aspects. In a couple of months when this, sadly abandoned game, ends up on steam for 19.99 with all DLC's I think you'll find that a lot of new players, once they have figured out the mechanics will be turned off by things like an invincible death fleet that is incredibly easy to get allowing you to destroy at will who you want. I have a lot of goodwill of amplitude but whoever thought up this idea and patching a game before a DLC is released!? Clearly doesn't give a damn about the game and is just working on a civilisation clone which I will not buy. I hope this has not killed ES3 in a couple of years. 

Lightjolly wrote:

And I seriously doubt ES2 will get the royalty treatment Endless Legend got with new GOOD dlc 4 years later.

Have hope! =D

Shrik3 wrote:

Put quite simply I have been supporting this game EA. I have bought every DLC and I've got my money's worth however the last expansion was terrible, it is the only campaign I just could not get myself to finish and I just occasionally pop on here to see if you've done the right thing by at least getting rid of that ridiculous fleet which makes the game so easy, it's comic. I'm saddened that a game that started so badly, improved, was given an admirable amount of free content should be left like this. The universe is the best part of the game. The combat is and has always been pretty awful and the tech tree was never as simple and logical as the first one. But it had many good aspects. In a couple of months when this, sadly abandoned game, ends up on steam for 19.99 with all DLC's I think you'll find that a lot of new players, once they have figured out the mechanics will be turned off by things like an invincible death fleet that is incredibly easy to get allowing you to destroy at will who you want. I have a lot of goodwill of amplitude but whoever thought up this idea and patching a game before a DLC is released!? Clearly doesn't give a damn about the game and is just working on a civilisation clone which I will not buy. I hope this has not killed ES3 in a couple of years. 

Hi there - you seem quite a genius sir. What you described is actually quite exactely what brought me here. I never heard about the game before, saw it on sale on steam.

Quite a big 4X (or "grand strategy" in general) fan myself on first glance i see the roots in stellaris, obvious civilization but i kinda liked it. Needed a few rounds to get the mechanics and so but i started to like the combination (and own ideas) - nice mixture! 

But then this Academy Event rolled of and i was already going to war and had an abundance of the resource asked so i thougtht: "maybe it wont be the best - usually in these games you get a handfull of shipd that are more like garbage but some more bodies to throw at the enemy that arent my citizens? whats wrong with that?" Dude was i wrong! This alone makes me not wanna play the game any more. I was thinking about just trying to get it every time and let it sit at the edge of the screen but what a waste of resources.

And as a player and customer i ask myself - how can a company make such decisions to balance? Who was the guy that came up with such an idea and didnt see the complications? And why nobody told him? And the answer about the resouces in developing teams? You have some flip-switches in the game-settings already. Just add one to disable this "auction". Done. I maybe not a game developer but i also earn my living writing software - i cant imagine that its THAT hard to do.Just disable the trigger for the event entirely.

These two points (and the fact that this is already the case for a few months now) bring me to the point that i wont put any more time into this product. I even put Humankind on my watchlist. But spending my time on a product that may contain more flaws like this? I dont think so. Sometimes its sad how really small things can ruin a whole experience. And how easy they could have been avoided (i still dont get over the fact that it was implemented this way. If you could only use them defensively during that time would maybe even abusable but however this idea passed ANY kind of QA if it exists is beyond my imagination).

There is a switch. It's called "disable Awakening DLC".

Sublustris wrote:

There is a switch. It's called "disable Awakening DLC".

Yeah but you lose Nakalim and some neutral quests that way.

Sublustris wrote:

There is a switch. It's called "disable Awakening DLC".

Im quite sure that you were completely sure about the concerns mamarider has already pointed out. And aditionally - as a new Player:

- i have been completely unaware from what DLC this feature is (what i checked before i wrote the first post in here - so i was completely aware i could disable the dlc) 

- what else i lose (that i dont know exactely till today - it was to hard to identify)

from the way you sound and the way you argument i dont think a discussion on this topic between us would go anywhere (had too many of these on internet forums). For me the topic is closed. The game is uninstalled and will quite possibly never be installed again. I had enough fun with it for the few bucks i paid and i am not here to get my money back. What i wrote in my first post was for sure a bit of complain but mostly expressing my complete lack of understanding for the design decision in the first place. (And additionally: there are switches for features - while it would be quite sure that this feature would be "questionable" at least - why dont put one in in the first place? - for people who would like to keep the rest of the expansion)

To repeat: from all my experience with 4X games no other game has ever introduced a mechanic providing one player with an absurdely overpowered fleet quite early in the game (additional to any millitary he already has and with NO restrictions on how to use it). While i now understand the lore-based logic behind it from a game-design perspective that makes completely no sense (to me). And i even think that based on the lore there WOULD be some restrictions on how the fleet should be used. But im new to the Endless universe so i dont know for sure. And while its not reasonably bad for single-player (just get it and wreck your opponents - feels like cheating, but sure some wil enjoy it - this game is multiplayer-capable! I dont wanna play MP with a game that has a feature like this! i cant imagine anyone who would?

 (why do i have to be online for SP? - was the first point this product got me very annoyed...because it means the point the servers are no longer there the game is not working anymore...and i dont see a reason for it...but that is just a personal thingthat gets me very annoyed...like when i NEED to create a new account on the publishers infrstructure to play a game or things like that - but its their püroduct, they are free to decide whats the best way for them)

my conclusion (for myself - everybody is free to disagree) is that this design (the spear) is a very bad (from my point of view - and i dont really see very solid arguments for it like it is) decision. A decision in a field that is crucial for a game to be fun (for me). And i cant imagine how a feature like this gets into a well-maintained product. So i come to the conclusion i dont trust this company with making game-design-decisions that make sense or are fun to me (and i think the majority of players). So i will stay away from their products in the future because i see a too high potential that it would be a waste of time and money.

So far i hope you now have gotten a better understanding of my point of reasoning. If you have some reasonable arguments maybe i will come back and adress them. If you just wanna blindly defend a game you obviously like (nothing wrong with that - have found myself in the shoes some times, too!) i think everything is said here.

Lets be honest here, Endless Space 2 can scare off some players easily. And it is not Awakening's fault, it is a big problem with UI and lack of dedicated tutorials. If the game had a mini-tutorial dedicated to a DLC then all balance issues would become visible, because the game would fail to explain itself. Only curious players stay, I could be turned away by manpower mechanic in the past, but I googled hard and got over it. I could then be turned away by the complex space battles but I googled like hell and got over it too. The problem is, Google makes Amplitude a favor and they don't recognize it. It is noit "easy to learn - hard to master" case, because it is not easy to learn. And it is hard to win following the tutorial we have right now, unless it is the easiest difficulty. 

mamarider wrote:

Lets be honest here, Endless Space 2 can scare off some players easily. And it is not Awakening's fault, it is a big problem with UI and lack of dedicated tutorials. If the game had a mini-tutorial dedicated to a DLC then all balance issues would become visible, because the game would fail to explain itself. Only curious players stay, I could be turned away by manpower mechanic in the past, but I googled hard and got over it. I could then be turned away by the complex space battles but I googled like hell and got over it too. The problem is, Google makes Amplitude a favor and they don't recognize it. It is noit "easy to learn - hard to master" case, because it is not easy to learn. And it is hard to win following the tutorial we have right now, unless it is the easiest difficulty. 

While i think your statement is true that some mechanics could maybe betteer explained to never players this game is far from the "window-manager with thousands of number" that for example games like stellaris or HOI4 are (and i personally appreciate both - im not here to say: "go play XYZ because its so much better"...i enjoyed the time i had in ES2 - till i understood the mechanics behind the spear...). I think (maybe because im not new to the genre) i was quite able to get the mechanics and played quite ok i think. its that at the point the spear is "sold" the first time its easily (by far? might be dependend on the difficulty) more than doubling even anything the AI has on fleetpower at that moment. So how is that enjoyable to a never player to be attacked by that? how it is balanced to get it and just run over one or maybe two of your opponents (giving you their ressources - making it even more likely to get it again next time). How is this enjoyable in Multiplayer? I dont get it - its as simple as that - i cant understand how this could have been done like it is. But maybe i need like some 1000 hours more in this game to understand it...but i dont think i will try...

I am also against gameplay decisions awakening brings to the table. Amplitude has my trust over the years, I know they listen to the feedback and I'll better turn off the Awakening till the better times same as Sublustris rather then thumb down the whole game.

@Delse

You can play ES 2 single player offline, in case you start Steam offline.

Sublustris wrote:

People exaggerate its power/usefullness way out of proportion and forget about the rest of the game behind it.

Players don't take into account that winner had to sacrifice significant amount of resource to get that fleet. That three more people (2nd to 4th place) are rewarded with powerful carriers too, each can be hired and coupled with small ships can stand against Spear's fleet.

The resources are not a significant cost for such a reward, and furthermore, they aren't significant comparitively. The amount of dust or influence you pay is nowhere near the value of the fleet. In addition, imagine this scenario:

1st place spends 2000 dust

2nd place spends 1950 dust

3rd place spends 1900 dust

4th place spends 1850 dust

The person in first place only spent 150 more dust than the person in last place, and look at what they achieved for that meager 150 dust difference.

Sublustris wrote:

Noone mentions that you can dodge Spear and stall ground invasions untill it disappears. Even if you lose one-two worlds that's not too much different from Cravers that can do the same on their own at the same period of game.

The difference is that Cravers can be disabled without disabling an entire DLC pack. Another difference is that if you detect Cravers nearby, you know who your threat is going to be in the early game and you can prepare for it. 

Sublustris wrote:

Noone mentions that Spear doesn't scale into mid to late game, that 4th Spear is basically obsolete and can be defeated by pretty much anyone who lived long enough to face it, making it "early-game crysis, late-game scoff"

You aren't wrong, however the early game problems caused by the Spear far outweigh its late game balance issues. Even so, when it's less useful in the late game, you can still bid smaller amounts to win it and have an additional fleet to support an existing better one. It also still has cloak detection.

Big thanks to kuma

who resolves academy faction, spear and a lot of things with an essential mod

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1467372500.